Posted by Lex Konrad in Dispatches | May 27, 2004
Blogging’s not just for geeks and angst-ridden teens anymore. Sitting in your underwear and typing stuff on the Internet’s got mainstream cachet. The summer of blogs is upon us.
If reports from the front are to be believed, a sinister cabal of bloggers is taking over. This week they’re the talk of the town, pretentious naysayers notwithstanding. Book and movie deals are seemingly spreading like wildfire, this despite the fact that blog rhymes with frog, and bloggers have yet to produce anything that looks remotely like a book or a movie.
But they’re typing stuff… on the Internet!
The Young Turks are back, rising phoenix-like from the ashes of the dot-bomb, ready to pump-n-dump all over again. And forget (yawn) reality teevee—now we’ve got really real hipster dating blog-a-log stuff: Survivor and Blind Date all rolled into one. Oh boy! Next up: American Blogger Idol, Who Wants to Marry a Blogger?
For Blog or Money?
The phenomenon isn’t limited to our little town, either. Washington (a distant suburb of New York) is abuzz with the latest bloggy blogness. Young senatorial staffer Jessica Cutler (aka Washingtonienne) blogged about her sordid dealings in money-for-sex, and then Wonkette blogged about the blog, and then some people got mad, and then Daze blogged about the blog about the blog (with pictures!), and there may have been a threesome, and now there are book rumors and teevee appearances and Playboy offers and so on. Confused? Don’t be! She typed stuff… on the Internet!
Hell, even Bill Gates is getting wise. He wants big companies to pay him so they can type stuff… on the Internet!
What does it all mean? Damned if I know. Ask my agent.
One thing’s certain, though: It’s gonna be one hot, bloggy summer. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Posted by Lex Konrad in Sex | May 24, 2004
The four of us are crammed into a booth at Art Bar, downing potent cocktails. I’ve got one and a half martini glasses of Blue Sapphire in front of me and I’m struggling to keep up with Emma. How can such a tiny chick absorb so much liquor?
“So, who’s Ruben?” Natalia’s asking me.
Ruben Rubin: promoter extraordinaire—diminutive, personable, tirelessly devoted to good times. Anyone who’s anyone who gets around knows Ruben. We met at a shabby underground party in 1999 and I soon counted myself among his circle of revelers. In my heyday I worked 80 hour weeks and raged on the weekends—pre-game drinks at 2200h, hit a club at 0200h, wait for Ruben’s call at 0500h… after-party’s at so-and-so’s place on the UES, penthouse suite. Yeah, and bring some girls. Sometimes we’d line up three of these after-parties in a night, my eyes wide as saucers at the sight of it all: heaping plates of blow, nineteen-year-old models with sunken eyes and rusty pipes, Harvard grads dabbling in better living through chemistry—C, X, K, G—mixing and matching the alphabet. Stumble home at 1600h, get up at midnight and do it all over again. Those were lost weekends. Going home when the cock crows is for amateurs.
And Jimmy, the coke dealer who had a thing for sex toys and ladies’ underwear, who was every bit as erratic as Dean from Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. Jimmy always had four or five girls over and liked to make them beg for it—he was known for fishing his cock out in front of his female clientele. He couldn’t figure me out because I never wanted anything from him. “A-aleks, check this shit out,” he’d sputter, drooling over a lump of cocaine the way an entomologist might fawn over an exotic beetle. “This is my best shit. Watch how it crumbles.” I was more interested in his bizarre philosophical rants. But I did make introductions, and I suppose I enabled a lot of coke fiends back then. Pour a 40oz for the guys in rehab. Hoist your glasses, gents. You dodged the bullet. Whatever happened to you Jimmy? Ever get around to reading that book?
Everything was automagic. Me, stumbling penniless out of one of Ruben’s parties at Chaos, not knowing what to do next, when he comes through with a car service, presses a bottle of Skyy into my hand and tells me to head to Float. Not merely the VIP room—that’s for amateurs—rather the double VIP room, filled with doubly very important people. “But I have to hit an ATM,” I lamely protest. Doesn’t fucking matter—everything’s paid for. I was an artiste back then. What a decadent little pussy I am now! I feel old just thinking about those times, and when the kids talk about their pansied walks on the wild side, I fix a thousand-yard stare and say, softly, “you ain’t seen shit.”
I try to break it down for Natalia but I may as well be talking about Weimar Berlin. A ten-volume epic poem wouldn’t cut it. You just had to be there.
We head up to the ATM on 16th and then I make a quick stop at the Grill. Million stories about that place as well. Guns and mobsters and such. D is there and we play the same game we always play.
“Written that novel yet?” I say.
“Workin on it,” he sez.
“Scribble, scribble, scribble, eh?” I say, attempting to be witty. I mumble something about David Foster Wallace, D’s favorite author.
“Been hearing rumors about you,” he sez.
“Lemme guess… Jorge’s given you an earful,” I say.
“Yup,” he sez.
“No doubt. Any rumors you’ve heard are certainly true. Next Thursday, eh?”
“Yeah.”
To Vela, then. It’s Ruben’s new Saturday night spot. And Ruben’s still got his whores, his odd assortment of trustafarians and hangers-on, his bottles of vodka, compliments of the house. I give Ruben that macho handclasp pseudo-hug that somehow seems gayer than the real thing. I run into T, formerly of the Quadrille-Hamptons set, who’s still prattling on about his crazy startup schemes. Then Stymie the deejay who’s currently stymied in the gig department. He feels it necessary to apologize to Leslie because he made a pass at her a year ago.
Emma and I huddle in the corner commenting on the music. “That’s old school.” Then another song comes on… a Prince ditty: “Oh shit… now that’s old old school.” Les walks over and we dance. I light a cigarette, my second act of civil disobedience this night (earlier, as we rode the train, I’d taken a blurry-assed snapshot of Les and Emma sitting together). Les talks about the time we stopped smoking for three months on account of a bet we’d made, and how we’d eventually circumvented the rules by having other people exhale smoke into our lungs. She demonstrates this on Emma and soon they’re in full lip-lock. Natalia and I watch the girl-on-girl action and make a show of rolling our eyes.
No apres-hours tonight. Ruben says next week, maybe. Natalia tries to get us to head to Midtown where she plans to meet a few friends but I decline—I have a sixth-sense about these situations. So Natalia leaves and later on calls to say the party was, indeed, lame.
Les suggests our place and Emma’s up for it. The implications sink in and I’m momentarily floored. Once we’re back home, I light candles and queue up Abbey Road. Everything is mellow at first. I’m lying on the couch with my head in Emma’s lap and I’m kissing her hands and letting my fingertips graze Leslie’s thigh. For a moment it seems like we might just drift off and that would be alright. Then our hands and lips and tongues grow frenzied and Emma’s telling us we’re not nearly naked enough.
Delirious in the pre-dawn light, I feel like I’m hovering above myself, like this is all lucid dreaming. I’m kneeling over her and thinking she’s so little, so little. I’m pushing it in, uncertain of my aim, trying not to accidentally bugger her, and later on so blitzed, so loopy, that I have to work at coming, her little cunt spasming against the force of my thrusts. How weird it is that I was sweet on her once and then we couldn’t have this and here we are again. It’s different now: familiar and messy and warm and relaxed. Comfort sex at its finest. All the sexual benefits of a relationship and none of the bureaucracy.
We wake up, the three of us, moaning, delirious, very much on the shit end of the stick hangover-wise. Emma showers as Les and I work in a quickie. Then we all head over to Barney Greengrass for smoked fish. In between mouthfuls of scrambled eggs with Sturgeon and Nova Scotia Salmon, I point at Leslie’s seat. “Alec Baldwin sat there.”
Later on we walk uptown, bellies full, and we indulge in post-prandial free association. “I met James Gandolfini once,” says Emma.
I smile, seized by an idea. “You know, Les, all this stuff we do… it’s like taking a shit.”
Les grins back at me, picking up on the cue. “I like to think of it as giving birth.”
Posted by Lex Konrad in Sex | May 21, 2004
Wolf down a plate of mac-n-cheese. Finish your beer. Throw on those pants with the frayed edges and a few small holes in them. You bought them that way. Grab a shirt off the hanger—the one Nova calls your “dirty shirt.”
Beware of the woman who lies in wait behind a parked van. Too late: she’s sprung her trap and nabbed your cab. Another taxi comes along in a minute, cutting across three lanes and nearly sideswiping an ice cream truck. Your girlfriend shoos the lumbering beast off. Outta the way! Doo dee dum dee doo, the truck drones on.
Navigate the city grid to Jack-n-Jill’s, down past sleepy doorman buildings where money comes home to roost. Be prepared for that look Jack always gives you because you’re always late. The two girls are gussied up and appear not at all the way you remember them. Make an exaggerated formal gesture of kissing the German girl’s hand—something she’ll remember—and then chill on the couch. Laconic tonight, aren’t you? Nothing a few drinks won’t fix.
Natalia’s spent the past two hours preening and prepping. You call her and she’s still holed up at home, walking around topless and fretting over her assortment of dresses. Tell her you’ll meet her in 20 minutes. Your girlfriend rides with Jack-n-Jill and you, lucky you, get to escort the girls. It’s starting to rain now and the cab scoots down the Franklin D. Roosevelt like a hydrofoil.
Stake out a space downstairs by the bar, buy a drink and watch ‘em all roll in, first your girlfriend & company, then Ms. C (of the vicious circle) and her curious, rebounding friend, then Film Boy and Cherry Girl. A brunette in a red dress struts by and runs a soothing hand down the small of your back. Flash a sidelong glance and smile—there’ll be time to deal with this later. Someone’s calling your name and when you see her your eyes bug out. She used to work for you. “What are you doing here?” she asks. Ask her the same question.
Wander out for a smoke just in time to meet Natalia on her way in. “I hope you’re wearing something sexy under that jacket,” you say. Yes she is. Head back down and dance for awhile. Interact. Spy the woman in red. Your girlfriend lifts her skirt and sticks her ass in front of a camera, a woman spanks it, and a dozen monitors moon the room. Your girlfriend’s kissing everyone now, including the cocktail waitress who keeps trying to get you to buy a vial of mystery liquor.
You’re upstairs chatting with Jamie. It’s been two years since you last saw this girl but she acts like it’s only been a week. She’s pretty… and witheringly vapid. Go ahead and see if you can push her buttons. “I still have those naked pictures of you… you and those big tits and that sexy ass,” you tell her. She laughs. Natalia appears at your side. Make the necessary introductions.
Leave with the German girl when she tugs at your arm, concern etched in the furrows of her brow. She pulls you outside into the downpour, around the corner, and you see your girlfriend huddled on the curb, soaking wet, head hanging heavily. What a mess. You’re both hauling her up, getting her to stand, scolding her for overdoing it. Try to find a cab but give up after 20 minutes in the rain, after some yuppie steals your ride and you’re this close to hauling him out by the neck.
Take your girlfriend inside and tell Jamie to get her a glass of water. Run downstairs and let everyone know what’s going on. When you come back up Jack-n-Jill are outside helping your girlfriend into a cab. Hand the driver 20 bucks and then stare in bewilderment—the driver’s saying something but it’s coming across as white noise. Before you can react Jill throws in another 20 and the beast is satisfied. Broken meter… goddamned crook from Crapistan. Make a note of the number and tell the cabbie he’d better get your mate home safe and sound. Tell her you’ll call in five minutes. Slam the door.
And, of course, once she’s at home she calls you to say she feels fine.
Go to the bodega with Natalia and grab some ciggies. On the way back you see Film Boy and Cherry Girl hailing a taxi. They invite you to an absinthe party. Turn down their invite—later on you’ll be glad you did. You find the German girl, meaning to thank her for taking care of your girlfriend, and the two of you sit upstairs drinking water. The way she’s staring at you… you know it’s coming. “I’m going to do something mad,” she says. Don’t flinch when she grabs you and presses her lips to yours, when all you can think is that impulsive is the word you would have used, or crazy even… but not mad. Stick your hand up her skirt and feel her cunt over her panties. She’s cute, actually. “Shall we go, uh, downstairs?” you ask, feeling a tad awkward. When you stand she puts her arms around your neck and kisses you again.
The night’s winding down. You find the cocktail waitress by the dance floor and she’s hounding you again, asking you to do a body shot with her. “Look, how much commission do you make off this crap?” you ask. She tells you. “Well, why don’t I just give you the money and lick you wherever I want.” When you say this, place your hand on her ass for emphasis. She won’t mind.
It’s a wrap. Natalia’s right here, in her underwear, lying next to you as your girlfriend’s pretty mouth clamps onto your member. Everyone’s split, run off to after hours, gone home to sleep, fuck, masturbate, watch television. Everyone’s on automagic pilot.
Posted by Lex Konrad in Dispatches | May 15, 2004
Gosh, it’s been awhile. We’ll be cavorting over at Remote Lounge tonight, getting back into the swing of things. And sadly we’ll be Nova-less. She’s out on a date of all things. I’m not sure I’m ready to dive back into the scene just yet, but tonight should be amusing.
Posted by Lex Konrad in Opinions | May 15, 2004
The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways. It serves as spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of the War. It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be taught History as sequences of violence … and be more prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass death’s a stimulus to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try ‘n’ grab a piece of that Pie while they’re still able to gobble it up.
Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
I’m getting that shell-shocked feeling again. It’s the way I felt back in the fall of 2001, wandering the streets of New York like a ghost. When the tourists would sidle up to the sarcophagus to take a good snapshot for the folks back home I’d stand there on the verge of chewing them out. This ain’t some spectacle packaged for your amusement, I’d think. Somewhere down in that hole I used to buy sweet bean pastries from the sushi place. And then I’d rush off to a meeting up there in the sky. With people whose lives would end mid-sentence.
There were small casualties too: the sudden end to a brilliant summer; the loss of a beacon, glinting in the late afternoon sunlight, reminding me that I was almost home and I wouldn’t have to see Jersey again for another twelve hours; the pretty English girl, the one I wanted to fuck, who fled back home; the affront to my cosmopolitan sensibilities as a New Yorker, this last point being what eventually angered me most. Walk the streets of this town and it’s a sea of humanity. This may be the one place on Earth where people basically get along—the mild, mutual contempt that characterizes city life notwithstanding.
Fighting and fucking: now these are things I can understand. A good old fashioned brawl, and when it’s done you grab your prize and go home. Not this. Our world’s infected by the madness of serial killers: this butchering over fetishized abstractions, over words written in obsolete instruction manuals, over ideologies and isms. There was a time, not so terribly long ago, when some people thought it was finally over—that we’d left all that muckety-muck behind. “Is Peace Breaking Out?” a magazine headline once dared to ask. Now it reads like black comedy. The 20th century is back with a vengeance.
Let’s blow something up. Let’s exact revenge on someone. If a thought like this hasn’t crossed your mind, however fleetingly, then you’re nuts. But it’s like that classic Twilight Zone episode: push the button and you’ll receive a million dollars. Someone you don’t know will die. The trouble is someone who doesn’t know you is next in line. You dig?
And what are we up against? Rage. Infection. The body’s response to infection is fever. More often than not it’s the fever that kills you.
Lacking any hard targets, people inevitably turn on each other. They grow obsessed with defining an other, someone they can wound. Arabs, Jews, the Right, the Left… the French, it really doesn’t matter. These scapegoats only serve to absolve the infected of responsibility for their own madness. The gas bags on the television, on the radio, on the internet, preaching from their bully pulpits, pull the poles farther apart. Sane individuals find themselves locked up in the loony bin. The infection spreads. Some liken us to animals, but animals simply fight and fuck. If only homo sapiens contented itself with that.
You’ll find the opportunists everywhere—terrorists detonating city blocks, heads of state moving bodies into conflict like so many chess pieces, demagogues inciting hatred—those who stoke the furnace of rage and profit from madness. It matters less to these people what side they’re on than whether their team is scoring points in this demonic game. They’re all making a play for a little bit of that War Pie.
So I’m inoculating myself against these false prophets, these schemers who use the spectacle of death to bait us into spreading their disease. It’s about time cooler heads prevailed. I’m not surrendering to rage.
